The Most Shocking Athlete Retirements

by Richard Janvrin, April 21, 2025

With the rise of betting at the best online sportsbooks, we’ve become more familiar with sports stars than ever. Thus, when someone retires out of nowhere, it can be jarring to fans of the team and those who’ve had them on fantasy teams, bet on them, or have followed their career.

Below, we’ll examine some of the most shocking athlete retirement stories, including those of Michael Jordan, Andrew Luck, and more.

• Michael Jordan
• Andrew Luck
• Barry Sanders
• Jim Brown
• Calvin Johnson
• Bjorn Borg
• Pat Tillman
• Magic Johnson
• Rob Gronkowski

Michael Jordan

The average athlete retirement age for someone at Michael Jordan’s level is somewhere around the mid-30s, so when he announced his first retirement in 1993 at 30, it was shocking to everyone.

Before that, Jordan won two NBA championships and other awards.

He released one of the more poignant athlete retirement statements: “I have reached the pinnacle of my career … I just feel I don’t have anything else to prove.”

After he retired, he attempted to play baseball. He played in the Chicago White Sox minor leagues, suiting up for the Double-A team, Birmingham. He had 88 hits in 497 plate appearances, three home runs, 51 RBIs, 30 stolen bases, and a batting average of 202.

After missing the 1993-94 season, he returned to the NBA and played from 1994 to 1998 before retiring again.

He then didn’t play from 1998 to 2001 but returned with the Washington Wizards from 2001 to 2003 before finally calling it quits for good after the 2002-03 season.

Andrew Luck

In modern sports, perhaps no athlete retirement shocked the world more than 29-year-old star quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, Andrew Luck.

Of all athlete retirement statements, Luck’s was one of the lengthier ones. He started off by saying, “This is not an easy decision. Honestly, it’s the hardest decision of my life. But it is the right decision for me. For the last four years or so, I’ve been in this cycle of injury, pain, rehab, injury, pain, rehab, and it’s been unceasing, unrelenting, both in-season and offseason, and I felt stuck in it. The only way I see out is to no longer play football.”

He then went on to say, “I’ve been stuck in this process. I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live. Taken the joy out of the game, and after 2016, when I played in pain and was unable to regularly practice, I made a vow to myself that I would not go down that path again. I find myself in a similar situation and the only way forward for me is to remove myself from football and this cycle that I’ve been in.”

The full transcript is quite long.

In hindsight, it wasn’t shocking that Luck didn’t play in 2017 due to injury and Luck was often hurt.

At the time, though, this was a player coming off a season in which he completed 67.3% of his passes for 4,593 yards, 39 touchdowns, and 15 interceptions.

He was in the prime of his career, and ever since, the Colts have been a mediocre franchise.

Barry Sanders

We mentioned that the average athlete retirement age among superstars can go well into the 30s, but Sanders retired at 31 after the 1998 season, coming off a Pro Bowl appearance.

Over his career, he had 3,062 carries for 15,269 yards and 99 rushing touchdowns.

Sanders explained that his reasons for retiring were a lack of motivation and the Lions’ inability to compete for a Super Bowl.

Jim Brown

Before Sanders, there was Brown, one of the most dominant running backs of all time.

He stunned Cleveland Browns and NFL fans alike in 1966 when he announced his retirement at just 30 years old.

His reason? To pursue acting and civil rights activism, and because he was unable to work out an agreement with Browns owner Art Modell for wanting to be involved in movies.

Calvin Johnson

The Lions have had not one, but two mind-blowing retirements.

After Sanders, following the 1998 season, Johnson, a wide receiver for the team from 2007 to 2015 nicknamed “Megatron”, hung it up.

He caught 731 passes for 11,619 yards and 83 touchdowns over his nine-year career and, like Sanders, was eventually inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Many speculated he retired for the same reason Sanders did—the Lions were not a good team—but between the two athlete retirement statements, Johnson was much more transparent regarding his feelings on the team saying “I wouldn’t just quit because we were losing… Just [my] body, man, I was tired of it. I was fed up. Had enough.”

Bjorn Borg

Borg became a Grand Slam champion in tennis after winning the 1974 French Open shortly after turning 18, but by the time he was 26, he put down the tennis racquet from 1984 to 1991.

He won 654 matches over his career.

Before his first retirement, he won the French Open six times, Wimbledon five times, and the US Open four times.

He said he retired due to lack of motivation, but at the time, for a player of his caliber, it was completely unexpected.

Pat Tillman

Of all the athlete retirement quotes we wish we could hear, arguably none would’ve been more impactful than Tillman’s.

While he never released a statement publicly, his reason for retiring from the NFL and turning down a $3.6 million contract was to serve in the United States Army.

He retired in May 2002, just eight months after the September 11th attacks, to serve the United States.

Both he and his brother enlisted.

Deployed to Afghanistan, Tillman was killed. It was first reported as an ambush, but later it would be confirmed it was due to friendly fire.

Magic Johnson

We keep mentioning the average athlete retirement age for superstar players because it’s simply not common for players of Johnson’s skill level to walk away from their sport.

However, in 1991, at 32, Johnson delivered an athlete retirement speech that was unlike any other.

The retirement came after Johnson learned he was HIV positive. He returned to the NBA in 1996, left, and returned for the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

Needless to say, no one saw this reason for a retirement coming.

Rob Gronkowski

Typically, when there’s an athlete retirement, and they come back, their career often isn’t as fruitful as before they hung it up.

There are some exceptions, like Jordan, but there’s also Gronkowski.

A member of the New England Patriots from 2010 to 2018, Gronkowski announced his retirement due to injuries.

After sitting out the 2019 season, he returned in 2020 to team up with former Patriots teammate and quarterback Tom Brady, who left for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Brady and Gronkowski won Super Bowl LV in their first season in Tampa.

He played one more season before calling it quits for good.